News

19 June 2014

Amazon launches Fire phone.

At
a press event held in Seattle last night, Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos put
Apple, Samsung and legions of online retailers on red alert with the launch of
its new Fire smartphone, with the
promise that the online giant would once again revolutionise shopping.

Measuring
nearly 12cm diagonally, the new Fire
phone sports a 4.7-inch, 1,280x720 res display and is powered by a quad-core
2.2GHz Snapdragon 800 chip, has 2GB of RAM, 32 or 64GB of storage, and an
Adreno 330 graphics chip.Dolby Digital
sound is provided by dual-stereo speakers.

The
handset boasts a 3D effect (no glasses needed), made possible with four face-tracking cameras
mounted on the front of the device.This
allows the user to change an
image's perspective in relation to the display by moving their head, rather
than creating "pop-out" effects.

In
addition, the device has a 13 MP rear-facing camera with a dedicated shutter
button for taking everyday photos, a front camera for selfies (2.1 MP), as well
as the four front-facing cameras to track your every move and gesture and act
accordingly. Amazon is also allowing
unlimited photo storage for the phone through Amazon Cloud Drive.

Bezos also showed how the "dynamic
perspective" effect could be used to help navigate maps by looking around
the side of landmarks.This effect is
made possible by the inclusion of the four "ultra-low power" cameras
coupled with four infrared LEDs, which permit the device to keep tracking the position
of the user's eyes and mouth in the dark.

Bezos gave the example of looking at a
dress' design from different angles as an example of how the effect could be
used, and showed how a handset could be tilted afterwards to make it move onto
another garment.

Another
standard feature is the ability to use the phone through gesture controls, for
example tilting the phone to scroll through web pages.

In
a rare media appearance, Bezos demonstrated Firefly, another innovation that enables
the phone to identify any of 100m products within a second and then link to the
product on Amazon’s website.

The Fire has a dedicated side-button to activate
Firefly, enabling the phone to recognise text, images, and sounds in the
smartphone's immediate vicinity.It can
be used to bring up information - for example details of a wine, the name of a
song, or information about a painting - and when relevant, the chance to buy
the same or a related product online from Amazon.

“The
dedicated Firefly button lets you identify printed web and email addresses,
phone numbers, QR and bar codes, artwork, and over 100 million items, including
songs, movies, TV shows, and products – and take action in seconds”, said
Bezos.

The basic version of the Fire will have 32GB of storage and will cost $199
(£117) when taken with a two-year contract.A 64GB version will also be available for $299 (£175). Both handsets
will also come with a free 12 month subscription to Amazon Prime.

Operating System:the on-board software is broadly based on
Android 4.2 Jelly Bean, although the look and feel are only vaguely similar to
Google’s stock OS.

Battery:as with the iPhone, the battery is not
‘user-replaceable’.

Cases:Amazon is also offering a selection of polyurethane cases for the Fire
Phone that come in five different colours.

The
handset is expected to launch in the US on 25th July.

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Comment:
Amazon's killer blow lies in its deep connection to the Prime subscription
service. The Fire phone is rather a gateway
into its millions of books, movies and music on-demand, making the device key
to a very appealing package.

The
phone distills the best of the Amazon user experience in Firefly, where a
single button on the device turns your world into a shop window. You like it, you snap it, and you can buy it.

Looking
past the much-hyped '3D' effect, actually there's a decent piece of kit with
some nice features. A quality camera and
screen, a reasonable price, free and unlimited photo storage, and a year of
Amazon Prime thrown in to boot are enough to shift units on their own.